6 ms·

If Facebook has a patent on React, it's almost certainly going to be on the vdom concept. If Facebook has a patent on the vdom, then all the projects in your l

by Lazare 9y ago

If Facebook has a patent on React, it's almost certainly going to be on the vdom concept. If Facebook has a patent on the vdom, then all the projects in your list violate the patent, and none of them come with even a conditional patent grant from Facebook. If Facebook does not have a patent on the vdom or other React technology, then those other projects are safe, but so is React, since termination of the patent grant has zero cost to you. My personal belief is that Facebook has no patents on React, so I feel safe to use React, Mithril, or any other vdom based library. But I can certainly understand people who feel like they need to play it safe, assume Facebook does have a vdom patent, and avoid all such libraries. But I'm not really following your logic at all. It's like you think Facebook has a patent, but then you only want to use the libraries that maximise your ability to get sued over it? What am I missing?

falcolas 9y ago
Being sued, whether the patent is valid or not, is really expensive. Unless you're Google, or of similar size, you're going to lose just due to the costs. Using React just opens you up to liability, with no real benefit (other than using React). Why would you use it?
- incompatible 9y ago
  Presumably anybody in this situation will be able to cope with the expense, since they'd already be suing Facebook.
  - mygo 9y ago
    just because you may have enough resources to sue facebook for patent infringement doesn't mean you can afford to halt all new development and rewrite/rebuild what has become the reason that you have enough resources to sue facebook
- Lazare 9y ago
  > Using React just opens you up to liability, with no real benefit (other than using React). How? Again, if they have a patent, they can sue you if you use one of the alternatives mentioned. If they don't have a patent, they can't sue you if you use React. What's your thinking behind saying using React adds liability? Because to me, it looks like either it does nothing or it reduces liability.
  - kavok 9y ago
    The fact that we even have to have this discussion is a reason not to use it. I'd have to a hire a lawyer and disclose it to my investors to be cleared up. It would cost us money to validate because it does something different compared to any other similar project. My investors were very specific about software licenses - we aren't allowed to use GPLv4 or AGPL at all.
    - chrisco255 9y ago
      If that's your concern, then you should comb through the source code of all your open source libraries and be certain that none of it violates any of Facebook's patents, including the MIT licensed stuff, which may very well.
    - Lazare 9y ago
      > I'd have to a hire a lawyer and disclose it to my investors to be cleared up That seems extremely weird. Normal startups do nothing of the kind; do you have extremely weird investors? > My investors were very specific about software licenses - we aren't allowed to use GPLv4 or AGPL at all. Ah, there we go. First off, there's no such thing as GPLv4. Second of all, you do realise that avoiding even the AGPL puts you in a vanishingly rare crowd in these parts, right? Eg, MongoDB is AGPL; of all the reasons I've seen given for avoiding Mongo, the license is a new one on me. If you've decided to only use GPLv2 or vanilla MIT licenses software that's totally fine, but it is unusual.
      - kavok 9y ago
        Sorry - meant GPLv3. All of the software we use is GPLv1/2, BSD, MIT, Apache etc..
jnbiche 9y ago
You're missing the fact that if you sue Facebook for any patent infringement, even a legitimate one (say, you're the creator of some new hardware), Facebook will revoke your React license. Also, Facebook has no vdom patent. It's not like you can be granted a secret, hidden patent (even the word "patent" itself means "open").
- chii 9y ago
  > Facebook will revoke your React license. you mean their patent grant? How can an open source license like apache, MIT or bsd be "revoked"? Do facebook have a public blacklist of people who aren't allowed to use react?
  - devdoomari 9y ago
    um... because it's they can? I can make a library with MIT license to everyone else but you. MIT and BSD licenses merely provide short-cuts to understanding a project's licensing
    - gstein67 9y ago
      "everyone else but you" would no longer be an OSS license.
    - nopzor 9y ago
      Not practically, because once you make a library with an mit license available to anyone, they can give to anyone you didn't "want" to give it to, per the mit license.
  - gstein67 9y ago
    Correct. Once released under an OSS license, that cannot be revoked. They can change/restrict the license on future releases, but you can also choose an older release, which uses the more favorable OSS license.
  - cyphar 9y ago
    Apache revokes your rights under the patent section of the license if you sue anyone for patents granted under said license: > If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed. Note that the "Grant of Copyright License" of Apache doesn't grant you the right to use the work, so revoking the patent license is effectively revoking the whole license (though you can still redistribute the work).
pdfernhout 9y ago
It's speculation what patents Facebook has for React or what they cover. I've heard of claims of prior art for vdom-like concepts, so it is possible even if Facebook has React-related patents, only narrower interpretations of any claims might hold up (if that). React has a specific way of updating state which, for example, Mithril does not use. So, it is possible other vdoms may be far enough away from React to not be covered by any patents claims Facebook might try to make. Granted, that is no 100% guarantee of anything. To me, the most important part of a vdom library like Mithril is using the HyperScript API with it, a library which predates React: Aug 20, 2012: https://github.com/hyperhype/hyperscript/tree/9237f590f3bc82b841ba6e7c4df946f21dff0045 https://github.com/hyperhype/hyperscript/tree/9237f590f3bc82... May 2013: https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/75897c2dcd1dd3a6ca46284dd37e13d22b4b16b4/LICENSE https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/75897c2dcd1dd3a6ca462... Personally, I feel templating approaches to making JavaScript-powered UIs like React's JSX or Angular's own templating approach or the templating systems in many other UI systems are obsolete. Modern webapps can use Mithril+Tachyons+JavaScript/TypeScript to write components in single files where all the code is just JavaScript/TypeScript. Such apps don't need to be partially written in either CSS and some non-standard variant of HTML that reimplements part of a programming language (badly). (Well, there may be a tiny bit of custom CSS needed on top of Tachyons, but very little.) Here is an example of a coding playground I wrote that way with several examples in it which use that approach: http://rawgit.com/pdfernhout/Twirlip7/master/src/ui/twirlip7.html http://rawgit.com/pdfernhout/Twirlip7/master/src/ui/twirlip7... So, by writing UIs using HyperScript (plus a vdom library), you can potentially (with some work) replace a backend like Mithril with almost any other vdom or even a non-vdom solution. So, that is another way I mitigate this risk when I have a choice. Granted, I know many web developers grew up on tweaking HTML and love HTML-looking templates and so they love JSX or whatever and are happy to ignore how hard it is to refactor such non-code stuff in the middle of their applikcations or validate it (granted, some IDEs are getting better at that). But I came to web development from desktop and embedded development working with systems where you (usually) generated UIs directly from code (e.g. using Swing, Tk, wxWidgets, and so on). I like the idea that standard tools can help me refactor all the code I work on and detect many inconsistencies. Maybe a deeper issue for me is that with BSD+PATENTS Facebook is redefining what "open source" means in a way that is harmful to the open source community -- and also free software community as well like with Automattic using React on top of a GPLd WordPress. Which is why the Apache Foundation rejected the React license.

by Lazare 9y ago

falcolas 9y ago

Being sued, whether the patent is valid or not, is really expensive. Unless you're Google, or of similar size, you're going to lose just due to the costs. Using React just opens you up to liability, with no real benefit (other than using React). Why would you use it?

incompatible 9y ago
Presumably anybody in this situation will be able to cope with the expense, since they'd already be suing Facebook.
- mygo 9y ago
  just because you may have enough resources to sue facebook for patent infringement doesn't mean you can afford to halt all new development and rewrite/rebuild what has become the reason that you have enough resources to sue facebook
Lazare 9y ago
> Using React just opens you up to liability, with no real benefit (other than using React). How? Again, if they have a patent, they can sue you if you use one of the alternatives mentioned. If they don't have a patent, they can't sue you if you use React. What's your thinking behind saying using React adds liability? Because to me, it looks like either it does nothing or it reduces liability.
- kavok 9y ago
  The fact that we even have to have this discussion is a reason not to use it. I'd have to a hire a lawyer and disclose it to my investors to be cleared up. It would cost us money to validate because it does something different compared to any other similar project. My investors were very specific about software licenses - we aren't allowed to use GPLv4 or AGPL at all.
  - chrisco255 9y ago
    If that's your concern, then you should comb through the source code of all your open source libraries and be certain that none of it violates any of Facebook's patents, including the MIT licensed stuff, which may very well.
  - Lazare 9y ago
    > I'd have to a hire a lawyer and disclose it to my investors to be cleared up That seems extremely weird. Normal startups do nothing of the kind; do you have extremely weird investors? > My investors were very specific about software licenses - we aren't allowed to use GPLv4 or AGPL at all. Ah, there we go. First off, there's no such thing as GPLv4. Second of all, you do realise that avoiding even the AGPL puts you in a vanishingly rare crowd in these parts, right? Eg, MongoDB is AGPL; of all the reasons I've seen given for avoiding Mongo, the license is a new one on me. If you've decided to only use GPLv2 or vanilla MIT licenses software that's totally fine, but it is unusual.
    - kavok 9y ago
      Sorry - meant GPLv3. All of the software we use is GPLv1/2, BSD, MIT, Apache etc..

jnbiche 9y ago

You're missing the fact that if you sue Facebook for any patent infringement, even a legitimate one (say, you're the creator of some new hardware), Facebook will revoke your React license. Also, Facebook has no vdom patent. It's not like you can be granted a secret, hidden patent (even the word "patent" itself means "open").

chii 9y ago
> Facebook will revoke your React license. you mean their patent grant? How can an open source license like apache, MIT or bsd be "revoked"? Do facebook have a public blacklist of people who aren't allowed to use react?
- devdoomari 9y ago
  um... because it's they can? I can make a library with MIT license to everyone else but you. MIT and BSD licenses merely provide short-cuts to understanding a project's licensing
  - gstein67 9y ago
    "everyone else but you" would no longer be an OSS license.
  - nopzor 9y ago
    Not practically, because once you make a library with an mit license available to anyone, they can give to anyone you didn't "want" to give it to, per the mit license.
- gstein67 9y ago
  Correct. Once released under an OSS license, that cannot be revoked. They can change/restrict the license on future releases, but you can also choose an older release, which uses the more favorable OSS license.
- cyphar 9y ago
  Apache revokes your rights under the patent section of the license if you sue anyone for patents granted under said license: > If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed. Note that the "Grant of Copyright License" of Apache doesn't grant you the right to use the work, so revoking the patent license is effectively revoking the whole license (though you can still redistribute the work).

pdfernhout 9y ago

It's speculation what patents Facebook has for React or what they cover. I've heard of claims of prior art for vdom-like concepts, so it is possible even if Facebook has React-related patents, only narrower interpretations of any claims might hold up (if that). React has a specific way of updating state which, for example, Mithril does not use. So, it is possible other vdoms may be far enough away from React to not be covered by any patents claims Facebook might try to make. Granted, that is no 100% guarantee of anything. To me, the most important part of a vdom library like Mithril is using the HyperScript API with it, a library which predates React: Aug 20, 2012: https://github.com/hyperhype/hyperscript/tree/9237f590f3bc82b841ba6e7c4df946f21dff0045 https://github.com/hyperhype/hyperscript/tree/9237f590f3bc82... May 2013: https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/75897c2dcd1dd3a6ca46284dd37e13d22b4b16b4/LICENSE https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/75897c2dcd1dd3a6ca462... Personally, I feel templating approaches to making JavaScript-powered UIs like React's JSX or Angular's own templating approach or the templating systems in many other UI systems are obsolete. Modern webapps can use Mithril+Tachyons+JavaScript/TypeScript to write components in single files where all the code is just JavaScript/TypeScript. Such apps don't need to be partially written in either CSS and some non-standard variant of HTML that reimplements part of a programming language (badly). (Well, there may be a tiny bit of custom CSS needed on top of Tachyons, but very little.) Here is an example of a coding playground I wrote that way with several examples in it which use that approach: http://rawgit.com/pdfernhout/Twirlip7/master/src/ui/twirlip7.html http://rawgit.com/pdfernhout/Twirlip7/master/src/ui/twirlip7... So, by writing UIs using HyperScript (plus a vdom library), you can potentially (with some work) replace a backend like Mithril with almost any other vdom or even a non-vdom solution. So, that is another way I mitigate this risk when I have a choice. Granted, I know many web developers grew up on tweaking HTML and love HTML-looking templates and so they love JSX or whatever and are happy to ignore how hard it is to refactor such non-code stuff in the middle of their applikcations or validate it (granted, some IDEs are getting better at that). But I came to web development from desktop and embedded development working with systems where you (usually) generated UIs directly from code (e.g. using Swing, Tk, wxWidgets, and so on). I like the idea that standard tools can help me refactor all the code I work on and detect many inconsistencies. Maybe a deeper issue for me is that with BSD+PATENTS Facebook is redefining what "open source" means in a way that is harmful to the open source community -- and also free software community as well like with Automattic using React on top of a GPLd WordPress. Which is why the Apache Foundation rejected the React license.